16 does feel warm.
Acclimation is a wonderful thing.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
sightseeing
Alaska is a quirky place. Even in Anchorage, so often you come across something that seems totally normal... and yet.. isn't quite.
On the way into work yesterday, two of those things stood out.
One is...well.. there is a certain interesection Anchorageites know well that almost always has someone with a cardboard "help me" sign on it. There are some regulars especially in summer, but it does rotate a fair bit.
The young man yesterday? Looking a little sheepish, he was holding a fair sized cardboard sign, reading:
Hunh.
Meanwhile, on the other side was a bus. And upon that bus was an advertising sign for one of the local in-home nursing staff places. And on that sign was a picture of a sprightly little old lately, 80 or more if she was a day, holding an M16 and saying -
It is... different here.
Edit - here she is!
On the way into work yesterday, two of those things stood out.
One is...well.. there is a certain interesection Anchorageites know well that almost always has someone with a cardboard "help me" sign on it. There are some regulars especially in summer, but it does rotate a fair bit.
The young man yesterday? Looking a little sheepish, he was holding a fair sized cardboard sign, reading:
"Need Woman"
Hunh.
Meanwhile, on the other side was a bus. And upon that bus was an advertising sign for one of the local in-home nursing staff places. And on that sign was a picture of a sprightly little old lately, 80 or more if she was a day, holding an M16 and saying -
what if I don't WANT to go to the nursing home?
It is... different here.
Edit - here she is!
Sunday, December 26, 2010
A place for everyone, and everyone in their place.
... yes, it was a good Christmas. Spoke with family and friends the country over. What a miracle telephony is!
Anyhow... between the cooking and the sewing, there was lots of time with busy hands but unoccupied ears, so I put on a UC Berkeley* lecture series covering the Progressive era. (Actually, it spans all of US history, but the most time is spent - as the name implies - on the post Civil War era. )
First impression. You have to hear how the professor warms up the class for the first lecture (starting around 11-12 minutes in). It's worth the twenty minutes. Trust me. :)
Second impression. While some of the names had gotten fuzzy, it's amazing how many of them were familiar. This was in large part my own collegiate education. I still remember one of my favorite professors talking fondly about the James Brothers. No, the other James brothers.
Among the takeaways -
1. It's Plato's philosopher-kings all over again, just in a slicker veneer. But you knew that.
2. The approach of social control through the courts is absolutely intentional. The idea - explained in more detail in I think the first lecture - is borne of early psychological theory. That is - you may disagree with X, but if you're forced to do it, through cognitive dissonance you will over time come to agree with X. Again.. this strategy was not a historical accident, but was absolutely intentional. And yeah, that creeps me the heck out.
3. I can't deny being the beneficiary of some of their actions. They would not have gotten anywhere if they were not addressing very real problems.
Each generation, I think, sees the side effects of our forebears' actions, and pays for their mistakes. Whatever we read however, we can't viscerally experience the world that moved them to action in the first place.
Thus, to judge them solely in the light of our own experience in the modern world is I think to do them a disservice. (This is, incidentally, the biggest slap in the face the boomer generation committed against their parents. It's not one I care to repeat.)
4. The early reforming impulse in New England is hardly surprising, and while not directly mentioned in the lecture itself, it's very much a product of that culture I think. That is, the "you'll do the right thing whether you want to or not."
An anecdote from Albion's Seed** reports -
Which leads me, I think, to the last observation. As frankly underhanded as a lot of the Progressive movement was (is?), in its heart of hearts it began I think very much as a positive, idealistic movement.
Until.
Everything starts to go off the rails I think in the late 19th century, around the time of Edward Ross. Darwinism (as an "ism") has become the intellectual fashion of the day ***, and it is in this time that the movement seems to have taken the notion that if God is not there to do the job of ordering the world, well.... someone would have to do it.
We see then the Puritan reforming impulse as strong as ever, but now unleashed from the constraint of Calvinistic Christianity and its notions of an eternally fallible mankind. Heaven on earth is within our grasp, if only we can make people behave. There was no longer a Divine spark to be treasured in the individual, but rather just one more blob of meat and memes to be discarded if not useful to the collective.
... and thus began the horrors, for to be honest I don't think God himself could ever prove half so adept or enthusiastic at separating sheep from goats as mankind as proved.
And so we get the meat grinder of the late 19th through the mid 20th century.
Of all the eras in the modern West, I think the century spanning 1880 to 1980 is the time in which I'd least choose to live. I'm sure there were many happy moments shared in prairie kitchens and backwoods cabins, in small town soda shops and shiny new libraries.
... but it was in age in which everyone was given their number, their place in line.. and in which the fashion of the day was to create heaven on earth, no matter how much blood it took.
A place for everyone, and everyone in their place.
Will Durant, in his Lessons of History, repeats a conversation described by (I think) Alfred de Musset. He attributes it Voltaire, although the story may well be apocryphal as the timing is off. Nonetheless it seems to suit the mood of the times, both of that era and its echoes two hundred years later. Our Jacobin philosopher is said have been been drawn into conversation one day with a member of the peasantry.
"You told us to abandon heaven , and to build it here," says the peasant. "You told us to give up our pitchforks and to take up our guns, and to fight for a new life."
"We took you at your word... and we have been defeated. We have to go back to our farms and our pitchforks. And now we are exploited just as before, and the heaven which you took from us is no longer with us, so that you have done one of the greatest crimes in history. You have taken our last resort from us."
And there lies the difference, I think, between the Puritan settlers of the 17th century and their reforming offspring in America some two hundred years later. As bloody as the "Who's God is He, Anyway?" wars of the 17th c. were, as harsh as the Puritan colonies were, there nonetheless seems to be in reading their writings a difference in kind and not of degree. Both fail to live up to their highest ideals. Both fall prey to pride, to avarice, to petty revenge, to ostracism, and even at their worst to sanctioned murder.
And yet, in the latter iteration there is this gnawing nihilism that just chews at the very humanity of everyone involved. If the one bred an nervous anxiety about measuring up to one's neighbor, the latter bred the darkest resentment I've yet to come across in human philosophy. Callousness abounds all through the ancient world, but not that level of just-under-the-surface spite.
Whoof.
Anyhow.. on to happier things. I think it's time for some more "Cumberland Gap."
later, y'all.
====================
* best to go to the horse's mouth I figure. They deserve a fair hearing as much as anyone.
** If forced to recommend a single "how we got here" book - that would be it. I have yet to come across a source that explains the roots of the regional tensions we experience to this day half to well.
*** As previously mentioned, I've got no bones to pick with descent w/modification. I do as I've said before have a problem with the philosophical lessons humanity has seen fit to draw from that observation, and especially as applied in the late 19th/early 20th c. Different things.
Anyhow... between the cooking and the sewing, there was lots of time with busy hands but unoccupied ears, so I put on a UC Berkeley* lecture series covering the Progressive era. (Actually, it spans all of US history, but the most time is spent - as the name implies - on the post Civil War era. )
First impression. You have to hear how the professor warms up the class for the first lecture (starting around 11-12 minutes in). It's worth the twenty minutes. Trust me. :)
Second impression. While some of the names had gotten fuzzy, it's amazing how many of them were familiar. This was in large part my own collegiate education. I still remember one of my favorite professors talking fondly about the James Brothers. No, the other James brothers.
Among the takeaways -
1. It's Plato's philosopher-kings all over again, just in a slicker veneer. But you knew that.
2. The approach of social control through the courts is absolutely intentional. The idea - explained in more detail in I think the first lecture - is borne of early psychological theory. That is - you may disagree with X, but if you're forced to do it, through cognitive dissonance you will over time come to agree with X. Again.. this strategy was not a historical accident, but was absolutely intentional. And yeah, that creeps me the heck out.
3. I can't deny being the beneficiary of some of their actions. They would not have gotten anywhere if they were not addressing very real problems.
Each generation, I think, sees the side effects of our forebears' actions, and pays for their mistakes. Whatever we read however, we can't viscerally experience the world that moved them to action in the first place.
Thus, to judge them solely in the light of our own experience in the modern world is I think to do them a disservice. (This is, incidentally, the biggest slap in the face the boomer generation committed against their parents. It's not one I care to repeat.)
4. The early reforming impulse in New England is hardly surprising, and while not directly mentioned in the lecture itself, it's very much a product of that culture I think. That is, the "you'll do the right thing whether you want to or not."
An anecdote from Albion's Seed** reports -
"When a stranger made the mistake of asking the Reverend Phillips of Andover if he were 'the parson who serves here,' he was abruptly told, 'I am, sir, the parson who rules here.'"
(p.41, sourced to Charles Andrews, Pilgrims and Puritans, p. 166)
Which leads me, I think, to the last observation. As frankly underhanded as a lot of the Progressive movement was (is?), in its heart of hearts it began I think very much as a positive, idealistic movement.
Until.
Everything starts to go off the rails I think in the late 19th century, around the time of Edward Ross. Darwinism (as an "ism") has become the intellectual fashion of the day ***, and it is in this time that the movement seems to have taken the notion that if God is not there to do the job of ordering the world, well.... someone would have to do it.
We see then the Puritan reforming impulse as strong as ever, but now unleashed from the constraint of Calvinistic Christianity and its notions of an eternally fallible mankind. Heaven on earth is within our grasp, if only we can make people behave. There was no longer a Divine spark to be treasured in the individual, but rather just one more blob of meat and memes to be discarded if not useful to the collective.
... and thus began the horrors, for to be honest I don't think God himself could ever prove half so adept or enthusiastic at separating sheep from goats as mankind as proved.
And so we get the meat grinder of the late 19th through the mid 20th century.
Of all the eras in the modern West, I think the century spanning 1880 to 1980 is the time in which I'd least choose to live. I'm sure there were many happy moments shared in prairie kitchens and backwoods cabins, in small town soda shops and shiny new libraries.
... but it was in age in which everyone was given their number, their place in line.. and in which the fashion of the day was to create heaven on earth, no matter how much blood it took.
A place for everyone, and everyone in their place.
Will Durant, in his Lessons of History, repeats a conversation described by (I think) Alfred de Musset. He attributes it Voltaire, although the story may well be apocryphal as the timing is off. Nonetheless it seems to suit the mood of the times, both of that era and its echoes two hundred years later. Our Jacobin philosopher is said have been been drawn into conversation one day with a member of the peasantry.
"You told us to abandon heaven , and to build it here," says the peasant. "You told us to give up our pitchforks and to take up our guns, and to fight for a new life."
"We took you at your word... and we have been defeated. We have to go back to our farms and our pitchforks. And now we are exploited just as before, and the heaven which you took from us is no longer with us, so that you have done one of the greatest crimes in history. You have taken our last resort from us."
And there lies the difference, I think, between the Puritan settlers of the 17th century and their reforming offspring in America some two hundred years later. As bloody as the "Who's God is He, Anyway?" wars of the 17th c. were, as harsh as the Puritan colonies were, there nonetheless seems to be in reading their writings a difference in kind and not of degree. Both fail to live up to their highest ideals. Both fall prey to pride, to avarice, to petty revenge, to ostracism, and even at their worst to sanctioned murder.
And yet, in the latter iteration there is this gnawing nihilism that just chews at the very humanity of everyone involved. If the one bred an nervous anxiety about measuring up to one's neighbor, the latter bred the darkest resentment I've yet to come across in human philosophy. Callousness abounds all through the ancient world, but not that level of just-under-the-surface spite.
Whoof.
Anyhow.. on to happier things. I think it's time for some more "Cumberland Gap."
later, y'all.
====================
* best to go to the horse's mouth I figure. They deserve a fair hearing as much as anyone.
** If forced to recommend a single "how we got here" book - that would be it. I have yet to come across a source that explains the roots of the regional tensions we experience to this day half to well.
*** As previously mentioned, I've got no bones to pick with descent w/modification. I do as I've said before have a problem with the philosophical lessons humanity has seen fit to draw from that observation, and especially as applied in the late 19th/early 20th c. Different things.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Happy Christmas Eve....
A couple hours till the Christmas Eve service downtown, and I'm getting some last minute sewing done for the gals. I'm afraid too many late nights at work means they'll be arriving in someones' stockings only after the Big Day - but I want to at least have these gals decent for their Christmas Picture for their new mommas. :)
.. this is the first Christmas away from some family or friends since...well, ever really. There are some great, great advantages to taking off on new adventures every few years. Traveling far from family, meeting all sorts of new and exciting people you'd never have had a chance to see if you'd stayed close to home.
... never let it be said it comes without a price. As all things in life do really, I suppose. Every dream is bought at the expense of others. I confess, as the smell of mulling cider and plum pudding filled my little cottage, I had to go put on one of the treasured memories of my own childhood.
This song is fun enough on its own. Now imagine bouncing on a bed with your momma and brother playing "sleigh" some rowdy sugar-filled Christmas Eve. It was awesome.
Laters, y'all. God willing, see you next year.
Go take a sleigh ride for me, eh?
Thank God for Kids indeed. :)
.. this is the first Christmas away from some family or friends since...well, ever really. There are some great, great advantages to taking off on new adventures every few years. Traveling far from family, meeting all sorts of new and exciting people you'd never have had a chance to see if you'd stayed close to home.
... never let it be said it comes without a price. As all things in life do really, I suppose. Every dream is bought at the expense of others. I confess, as the smell of mulling cider and plum pudding filled my little cottage, I had to go put on one of the treasured memories of my own childhood.
This song is fun enough on its own. Now imagine bouncing on a bed with your momma and brother playing "sleigh" some rowdy sugar-filled Christmas Eve. It was awesome.
Laters, y'all. God willing, see you next year.
Go take a sleigh ride for me, eh?
Thank God for Kids indeed. :)
Thursday, December 23, 2010
cold frosty morning
Trying to learn a couple tunes so I can actually play with that weekly jam session, and took the advice of some of the local music folks and just listened to 'em slowed down to get the nuances of what's actually happening in there.
On repeat.
Um... all night.
You know what happens when you do that? You get really interesting dreams.
... hillbilly renaissance fairs?
well... they at least both have axe-chucking. And fried food. :)
cluck little chicken.....
On repeat.
Um... all night.
You know what happens when you do that? You get really interesting dreams.
... hillbilly renaissance fairs?
well... they at least both have axe-chucking. And fried food. :)
cluck little chicken.....
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Book Reports, I
I am afraid I am at heart rather too chaotic for my own good. For that reason, at any given time (at least) a dozen books and more projects are piled on tables, nightstands, and such, each given some time here or there.
Travis has inspired me a to get a lot of that taken care of ... I think I'll actually do proper resolutions this year for the first time since....um... ever. :) (No peeking! But one preview is "no new projects until the sewing backlog is done" and "no new books until the current pile is at least half emptied.")
ANYHOW, since your time is as limited as mine, on and off this week you get my reading notes from the last several months. Merry Christmas!
Book the first -
1. Marcus Aurelius (A.D.130-189), Meditations.
Only started this one so far, but to date at least in translation he talks surprisingly like our Founders... emphasis on virtue, on doing the best on can with what one has - and lots and lots of talk about Providence. He was no Christian - in fact remembered very much for the persecution of same.
I wish I knew the Latin to know whether the language used predates the 18th c./Founders use of the term, or is an artifact of translation during the Christian era. Given the context, I suspect the former.
That said, the language is similar. It's fascinating and more than a little touching, knowing the people who wrote our own founding documents read the very same words at some point. It feels a little like cheating - like you can *almost* touch them through the pages.
(As an aside, in the Adams/Jefferson letters, at some point they're talking about trying to disentangle Christ's original message, prior to contact with Greco-Roman philosophy. When I actually catch up to that book and can put down the details I will. If you want to look yourself, it was around 1815.)
Reading on... I can't help but like the man.
To modern ears, his contemplative detatchment sounds almost Bhuddist. His occasional (I assume) neo-Platonic reference to a collective soul reads like something from Vonnegut. He calls to duty yes, but at least to my ears it sounds... gentle. The soft voice of a caring elder, not the cry of a commandant.
To his own lot? Over and over, he looks at the vast immensity of time, the small little span of his life, and as the end draws near says in effect...
"Ain't no big thing. May as soon go today as tomorrow."
For that's what it is... I'd expected a book on philosophy. I found the diary of a man saying goodbye to life. A man who could as easily been my grandfather, or yours.
There's something to be said for listening to those at either end of the door.
It's so easy to get..ummm .... (looking around and a desk piled high)..
....distracted.
... think I need to call Daddy tomorrow.
Travis has inspired me a to get a lot of that taken care of ... I think I'll actually do proper resolutions this year for the first time since....um... ever. :) (No peeking! But one preview is "no new projects until the sewing backlog is done" and "no new books until the current pile is at least half emptied.")
ANYHOW, since your time is as limited as mine, on and off this week you get my reading notes from the last several months. Merry Christmas!
Book the first -
1. Marcus Aurelius (A.D.130-189), Meditations.
Only started this one so far, but to date at least in translation he talks surprisingly like our Founders... emphasis on virtue, on doing the best on can with what one has - and lots and lots of talk about Providence. He was no Christian - in fact remembered very much for the persecution of same.
I wish I knew the Latin to know whether the language used predates the 18th c./Founders use of the term, or is an artifact of translation during the Christian era. Given the context, I suspect the former.
That said, the language is similar. It's fascinating and more than a little touching, knowing the people who wrote our own founding documents read the very same words at some point. It feels a little like cheating - like you can *almost* touch them through the pages.
(As an aside, in the Adams/Jefferson letters, at some point they're talking about trying to disentangle Christ's original message, prior to contact with Greco-Roman philosophy. When I actually catch up to that book and can put down the details I will. If you want to look yourself, it was around 1815.)
Reading on... I can't help but like the man.
To modern ears, his contemplative detatchment sounds almost Bhuddist. His occasional (I assume) neo-Platonic reference to a collective soul reads like something from Vonnegut. He calls to duty yes, but at least to my ears it sounds... gentle. The soft voice of a caring elder, not the cry of a commandant.
To his own lot? Over and over, he looks at the vast immensity of time, the small little span of his life, and as the end draws near says in effect...
"Ain't no big thing. May as soon go today as tomorrow."
For that's what it is... I'd expected a book on philosophy. I found the diary of a man saying goodbye to life. A man who could as easily been my grandfather, or yours.
There's something to be said for listening to those at either end of the door.
It's so easy to get..ummm .... (looking around and a desk piled high)..
....distracted.
... think I need to call Daddy tomorrow.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Well *that* was cool....
.... popped in and out to watch the moonshadow tonight. Frankly I was too much of a wuss to stay outside for the whole thing (not to mention having a list of things a mile long to finish) - but seeing that last little bit of silver creep away, and now the new bit....
AWESOME.
Happy (almost) New Year, y'all. :)
AWESOME.
Happy (almost) New Year, y'all. :)
Saturday, December 18, 2010
*Love* me some Saturdays....
Good weekend, all in all. Mostly spent sewing Christmas gifts (still need to finish the rag dolls for the girls... doing the hair takes forEVER....)
Anyhow, the highlights -
1. The moon was too bright to see any aurora, if it was out at all this far south. (Paul said it might be). Still.... listening to the frozen waterfalls creak and crack while watching the stars is just *amazing*. There is *nothing* in the world like an Alaskan night sky, way out from anyplace. The stars are crisp, clear, and they *sparkle* like you wouldn't believe. The downside is it's actually painful to out lookin' at 'em, but still... wow. :)
2. Went by one mall's quilt shop, and saw a small coin show. Given my Dad's interest, I thought I'd look for one of the Depression era tokens used up here as a trinket for him. No luck on that front - but pagans with an eye for ornament would do well to look for a 1920's Moroccan 1 franc coin. They're a little bigger than a quarter - I assume base metal from the cost -but I don't think I've ever seen a more lovely treatment of a pentacle.
It's a just gorgeous halfway between Victorian orderliness and art nouveau organics - the French characters are in that wonderful 20's Art Nouveau font as well. Anyway, very pretty.
3. There is nothing *quite* like the culture shock of going from the airplane mechanic's place all filled up with old-school gun guys talking shop, to a quilt shop for fabric. Viva la difference and all that, but wow. :)
4. I'll actually have content this week. Finished V1 of Gibbon's Decline and Fall and have a bit on that coming up.
Happy almost Christmas y'all. :)
Anyhow, the highlights -
1. The moon was too bright to see any aurora, if it was out at all this far south. (Paul said it might be). Still.... listening to the frozen waterfalls creak and crack while watching the stars is just *amazing*. There is *nothing* in the world like an Alaskan night sky, way out from anyplace. The stars are crisp, clear, and they *sparkle* like you wouldn't believe. The downside is it's actually painful to out lookin' at 'em, but still... wow. :)
2. Went by one mall's quilt shop, and saw a small coin show. Given my Dad's interest, I thought I'd look for one of the Depression era tokens used up here as a trinket for him. No luck on that front - but pagans with an eye for ornament would do well to look for a 1920's Moroccan 1 franc coin. They're a little bigger than a quarter - I assume base metal from the cost -but I don't think I've ever seen a more lovely treatment of a pentacle.
It's a just gorgeous halfway between Victorian orderliness and art nouveau organics - the French characters are in that wonderful 20's Art Nouveau font as well. Anyway, very pretty.
3. There is nothing *quite* like the culture shock of going from the airplane mechanic's place all filled up with old-school gun guys talking shop, to a quilt shop for fabric. Viva la difference and all that, but wow. :)
4. I'll actually have content this week. Finished V1 of Gibbon's Decline and Fall and have a bit on that coming up.
Happy almost Christmas y'all. :)
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Passions
You know the really really cool thing about people? No, I mean, besides that.
... It's how much people warm up when you ask them about what they love to do, and how excited they often are when you ask to play to.....
I won't pretend to have really held my own. But for not knowing the tunes or the tuning, I didn't make *too* many sour notes trying to follow along. And FUN!!!
And they gave me a CD. So NEXT week I'll be ready to follow along on at least a couple of 'em. :)
... It's how much people warm up when you ask them about what they love to do, and how excited they often are when you ask to play to.....
"So.... what tunes do I have to learn to jam with y'all someday?"
"Oh, sit down and give it a go. What do you play?"
"Um, fiddle, but.."
"ever played cross-tuned before?"
"well, no, but..."
"so sit down already! Here's a chair! Here, take this fiddle - you'll catch on ...."
"um.... okay...."
I won't pretend to have really held my own. But for not knowing the tunes or the tuning, I didn't make *too* many sour notes trying to follow along. And FUN!!!
And they gave me a CD. So NEXT week I'll be ready to follow along on at least a couple of 'em. :)
Monday, December 6, 2010
Wikileaks, 1776
The Virginia Gazette, June 7, 1776 --
Those dastardly professors!!
Mr. Purdie,
Understanding that the army is suffering for want of tents, and that the country has ordered a number of wooden ones to be made, which the carpenters cannot supply them with for want of NAILS, and being informed there was a considerable number imported by the college for the purpose of building an addition to it, and as that design seems at present to be laid aside, I cannot see any reason why the Convention should not order those nails to be taken for the use of the army, more especially, as, I am credibly informed, one of the professors has taken two barrels for his own use (one of 10d. the other of 8d.) containing many thousands, and carried them to Gloucester, unknown to the president, who, when he comes to hear of it, I make no doubt will order them to be brought back, and not suffer the college to be plundered by one of its professors.
Please to insert the above intelligence in your paper, for the benefit of the country, and you will oblige your constant reader.
- A FRIEND to AMERICA
Those dastardly professors!!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Over the finish line
... amongst other things today, finally got through the last of Locke's First Treatise. I confess, the occasional Shakespearean allusion aside, I found it the most mind-numbing slog since reading Madame Bovary in high school English. Ugh.
However, I have come to appreciate from it two things.
One - At one point, those arguments were actually relevant and interesting.
I have the luxury of thinking one hundred sixty pages deconstructing Scriptural arguments in favor of the Divine Right of Kings is a completely anachronistic, dull exercise only because my not-so-distant forbears were willing to endure hunger, cold, and shot in order to fill lots of other young men full of musket balls and send the King's men packing.
Thanks, y'all.
Two - there is no idea so absurd, no lie so blatant, that someone will not be willing to tell it in exchange for a scrap of sycophantic favor.
(The short version if you don't want to hit Wikipedia - "God gave Adam sovereignty over the whole earth. God also said to honour your father and mother. Therefore, you have to do what the King says, because he's Adam's legitimate heir. How do I know? Well, because he's the King, duh.")
No, seriously. That was it. I mean, it's not like they were saying "... and you have to do what we say because you agreed to it..somehow... when the midwife who delivered you used the King's Road" - but it was almost as serviceable a figleaf.
(And as a side note, those occasional references to medieval Irishmen writing their history around Noah and Israelite tribes takes on a whole new dimension now)
Anyhow. On to book two, I guess. This one actually looks interesting. :)
However, I have come to appreciate from it two things.
One - At one point, those arguments were actually relevant and interesting.
I have the luxury of thinking one hundred sixty pages deconstructing Scriptural arguments in favor of the Divine Right of Kings is a completely anachronistic, dull exercise only because my not-so-distant forbears were willing to endure hunger, cold, and shot in order to fill lots of other young men full of musket balls and send the King's men packing.
Thanks, y'all.
Two - there is no idea so absurd, no lie so blatant, that someone will not be willing to tell it in exchange for a scrap of sycophantic favor.
(The short version if you don't want to hit Wikipedia - "God gave Adam sovereignty over the whole earth. God also said to honour your father and mother. Therefore, you have to do what the King says, because he's Adam's legitimate heir. How do I know? Well, because he's the King, duh.")
No, seriously. That was it. I mean, it's not like they were saying "... and you have to do what we say because you agreed to it..somehow... when the midwife who delivered you used the King's Road" - but it was almost as serviceable a figleaf.
(And as a side note, those occasional references to medieval Irishmen writing their history around Noah and Israelite tribes takes on a whole new dimension now)
Anyhow. On to book two, I guess. This one actually looks interesting. :)
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Timesink
I know, I know - it's good for the soul to work for your bread. Frustrating as all hell when there are so many more things you'd rather be doing with those hours, but what is, is. But finally, a whole weekend to catch up on everything I've wanted to be learning.
So anyhow - just a quick progress report on the studies so far.
1. About halfway through Locke's first Treatise. It's slow going, mostly because it's agonizingly irrelevant to the modern political scene... the gist of it is, as Miss D aptly summed up after patiently enduring my rambles last week - an at times Corrina-style fisking of the contemporary defense of Divine Right of Kings. I'm still going to finish it out of pure stubbornness, but the highlights are summed up in the first page or two of the Second Treatise, so unless you're a masochist like me, I'd say reading the whole thing is prolly overkill. Frankly our Revolutionary forbears apparently thought the same, for while the Second Treatise was something of a best seller in the years leading up to the Revolution, it was circulated generally without the First.
2. Not long ago, a friend of mine asked me for a concise, reliable, relatively complete book on the American Founding and "what did they really mean?" She'd had horrible history teachers, pretty much blew off ever learning thing one about our history, our governance, or the thinking behind it, and only in recent months started looking around and asking.... so what did the Founders mean, after all? Thus the book request.
If any of y'all have suggestions, I'm open to 'em - I scoured the shelves of the local bookshop for an couple hours.... found some relatively complete ones I'd trust to give a good picture - but they were long and dry collections of original source documents in 18th c. language not many modern folks would want to put in the time to read. I found some short, accessible books, but they were either far too focused on a single topic, or so blatantly a modern political apologia I didn't feel comfortable recommending it.
The closest I could come was this TeachingAmerica lecture series on the Founding. I just finished the last of the series, and find it fasctinating. Highly recommended. And I think I'm gonna be building up some badnwidth overage charges listening to everything else they did. :)
3. Recently finished The Godless Constitution (notes to follow), and picking at The Founder's Second Amendment. Something I Did Not Know - it had been standard practice for some time for merchants to secure their powder stores in the community powder house/armory for fire safety reasons. (I'd still get itchy having a basement packed full of black powder.) When Gage effectively seized that powder by taking control of the powder house and denying them access to their own property, things got a mite bit itchy. This would become something of a bone of contention, and not irrelevant later in a little township called Concord.
(As an aside... Massachusetts - WT#? What happened to y'all?)
4. On the fiddling side, we're getting to learning chordal accompaniment. Guitarists will of course find this familiar. Now do it without frets. :)
... one thing I'll say, it sure teaches you to get your intonation right, it hurts when you bugger up your finger positioning by a fraction of an inch.
5. Pemmican mostly done.. I've enough suet for another 5 lbs or so of beef cooked down to jerky prolly, but may just use it for candles or cooking. One lesson learned.... do not use the commercial jerky in pemmican. Nasty tasting with all the preservatives, chemical smoke, etc... bleck! At least the birds might like it. Just plain dried beef, absent any sort of marinade works very nicely though. Slowly building up a nice reserve for a big hike next spring. :)
6. Christmas party in a couple weeks at work - gonna make a proper Dickensian plum pudding in the cauldron! Pictures will of course follow. :)
And that's it! Back to some chores and then the books again. Hopefully time to check on friends as well. Happy Saturday all! (OR Saturday evening already for the most of you I guess)
So anyhow - just a quick progress report on the studies so far.
1. About halfway through Locke's first Treatise. It's slow going, mostly because it's agonizingly irrelevant to the modern political scene... the gist of it is, as Miss D aptly summed up after patiently enduring my rambles last week - an at times Corrina-style fisking of the contemporary defense of Divine Right of Kings. I'm still going to finish it out of pure stubbornness, but the highlights are summed up in the first page or two of the Second Treatise, so unless you're a masochist like me, I'd say reading the whole thing is prolly overkill. Frankly our Revolutionary forbears apparently thought the same, for while the Second Treatise was something of a best seller in the years leading up to the Revolution, it was circulated generally without the First.
2. Not long ago, a friend of mine asked me for a concise, reliable, relatively complete book on the American Founding and "what did they really mean?" She'd had horrible history teachers, pretty much blew off ever learning thing one about our history, our governance, or the thinking behind it, and only in recent months started looking around and asking.... so what did the Founders mean, after all? Thus the book request.
If any of y'all have suggestions, I'm open to 'em - I scoured the shelves of the local bookshop for an couple hours.... found some relatively complete ones I'd trust to give a good picture - but they were long and dry collections of original source documents in 18th c. language not many modern folks would want to put in the time to read. I found some short, accessible books, but they were either far too focused on a single topic, or so blatantly a modern political apologia I didn't feel comfortable recommending it.
The closest I could come was this TeachingAmerica lecture series on the Founding. I just finished the last of the series, and find it fasctinating. Highly recommended. And I think I'm gonna be building up some badnwidth overage charges listening to everything else they did. :)
3. Recently finished The Godless Constitution (notes to follow), and picking at The Founder's Second Amendment. Something I Did Not Know - it had been standard practice for some time for merchants to secure their powder stores in the community powder house/armory for fire safety reasons. (I'd still get itchy having a basement packed full of black powder.) When Gage effectively seized that powder by taking control of the powder house and denying them access to their own property, things got a mite bit itchy. This would become something of a bone of contention, and not irrelevant later in a little township called Concord.
(As an aside... Massachusetts - WT#? What happened to y'all?)
4. On the fiddling side, we're getting to learning chordal accompaniment. Guitarists will of course find this familiar. Now do it without frets. :)
... one thing I'll say, it sure teaches you to get your intonation right, it hurts when you bugger up your finger positioning by a fraction of an inch.
5. Pemmican mostly done.. I've enough suet for another 5 lbs or so of beef cooked down to jerky prolly, but may just use it for candles or cooking. One lesson learned.... do not use the commercial jerky in pemmican. Nasty tasting with all the preservatives, chemical smoke, etc... bleck! At least the birds might like it. Just plain dried beef, absent any sort of marinade works very nicely though. Slowly building up a nice reserve for a big hike next spring. :)
6. Christmas party in a couple weeks at work - gonna make a proper Dickensian plum pudding in the cauldron! Pictures will of course follow. :)
And that's it! Back to some chores and then the books again. Hopefully time to check on friends as well. Happy Saturday all! (OR Saturday evening already for the most of you I guess)
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